It’s really easy now for small businesses to sell their products on the internet.
Especially if you haven’t got hundreds of products, or a high volume of transactions.
Continue Reading…

If you’re bogged down with all the hassles involved in setting up a traditional website, give WordPress a try.
This website was completely set up in less that 2 hours - And I’m not a Wordpress expert.

Wordpress is an application that is used by countless people all over the world to quickly build reliable, easy to update websites.

Starting from scratch, someone with a bit of technical knowledge could have you up and running in less than an hour.

WordPress was developed for blogging, but can also be used to quickly and easily build a normal website.
After it has been set up, you can maintain your site very easily from any computer that is connected to the internet. Continue Reading…

I’d like to know about your main goal in using the internet.
Or the biggest stumbling block that prevents you from accomplishing something you want to do.

This will help me fine tune the results from the survey, and produce blog posts that are interesting for you.

Thanks,
Eric G.

P.S. To make a comment, just click on the “Comments” link

Is Your Site Listed on Google?
Go to the main google search page at www.google.com

In the search box, type in site:yourdomainname.com
For example, to find out about this website, I’d type in site:www.taseric.com

Google will return a list of all the pages that it has indexed on your site.
At the top right, it also tells you how many pages on your site are indexed.
Have a look at this list.

Are the titles of the page meaningful? If not, you need to work on the Title tags for each page. Try to make them different, and relevant to the content of each page.
The title tag is one of the most important things on your page. And should contain keywords relevant to that page.
cheers,
Eric G.

P.S. Google also indexes PDF files that are on your website. If you didn’t know that, check to make sure that you don’t have any unprotected confidential documents on your website.

Who is visiting your website, and how did they get there?
Many people ask me about putting “Hit counters” on their site.
These things are a relic of the early days of the internet, and provide no meaningful information to you.

If you are hosted on WebAngel (or most other web hosts), your hosting control panel will contain a stats package named “AWSTATS”.

Follow this link, and you’ll discover all sorts of things about the visitors to your website.
Continue Reading…

A couple of people have said that they visited this blog, but didn’t know what to do next.

OK, here’s a quick run down.
Continue Reading…

LO,
Pretty well anything can be promoted successfully on the internet if you are creative about it.

Even if it’s unsexy and boring.

Exhibit 1: Blendtec
Consider the problem faced by Tom Dickson, founder of Blendtec.
He makes home blenders. Hardly an exciting item.
Here’s what he did to promote blender sales for his ailing company.
Continue Reading…

Most people’s idea of using their website to make money doesn’t go much beyond creating a some sort of website, and then hoping that somehow this will translate into some sort of increased income.

Perhaps they’ll also pay hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to someone who sends them an email promising to “get them to the top of hundreds of search engines”. They can’t tell if this is effective, because this is a totally meaningless and ineffective statement.

EBay is also held up as a model of how to make money on the internet, and it certainly can be if done right. However, for most people it is a labour intensive process, with very little return. Of course, there are very effective ways of making a consistent income from EBay. But it’s not by selling second hand stuff you find in the house - although this is an ideal way to learn how EBay works.

OK, these are some of the best ways that you can earn a good, consistent income on the internet. Continue Reading…

In my recent survey, one of the most common responses was that people wanted to use their websites to make more money.

OK, Great. I can certainly show you ways of doing that.

However due to endless amounts of internet sales crap, many people are under the impression that you can make a gazillion dollars a year doing no work while sitting around in your underwear.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is a myth.
However if you have built up a solid reputation with a group of people who trust you, then you can certainly make quite a decent income by doing little more than sending them an email.
Continue Reading…

Welcome.
I’ve recovered from my accident, and am raring to go with this blog and unload the contents of my head in your direction so that you can make plans for the improvement of your business websites.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be mainly addressing the things that survey respondents regarded as important.

Thanks to everyone who participated. If you’d like to make your thoughts known as well, here’s the link to the survey. I’ll leave it there for the next week or so, so please take a few minutes to respond so that I can make this site better for you.

Selected results of the survey shows that my clients have the following characteristics:
- All use some form of broadband (a few use mobile and satellite connections)
- 95% rely heavily on the internet to run their businesses
- 60% maintain their site themselves
- 54% get their information virtually by hearsay and “osmosis” (this is definitely a worry!)
- 80% have a “brochure” type of website, with no attempt to interact with their clients
- 90% want to improve their websites, but 50% of them don’t know what to do, or have the time to research what to do.
- 75% want to use their websites to make more money.
- 52% want to improve their writing and copywriting skills
- 48% want to find out more about the use of Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Myspace, etc.
- 60% want to improve their productivity and effectiveness.
- 62% want to find out more about using E-Commerce and selling thigs from their websites.
- 71% want information on technical topics
- 54% want my opinions and reviews on products, services, and internet issues.

OK, that’s a pretty daunting list, but I’m confident that I can address all these things for you.

You see, during the months that I was unable to function normally I didn’t just watch daytime TV.

I was able to spend a lot of time on the internet researching, establishing relationships with authors and programmers, and buying and trying lots of programs, E-books, Scripts, and other assorted things. I also purchased the rights to many of the items that I regarded as good enough to offer to my clients.

(If my wife ever finds out how much money I spent on all of this, she’d kill me! Or even worse, spend an equivalent amount of money on clothes!)

This time and money has been invested because I believe that this site can become one of the best Internet resources for small businesses who want to use the internet.

I asked my clients to do the survey so that this site can be relevant to the needs of small business owners like yourself. So stick around and see what happens. I’ve had almost 10 years of providing internet services and advice, and have encountered and dealt with pretty well every internet issue you’ll face.

One of the primary things I want to do on this blog is to earn your trust. And have you feel confident that you can rely on what you read here. Honesty and ethical behaviour is something that’s sadly lacking on many internet sites. I’ll be doing my best to provide it here.

This site and domain name has been started from scratch. To build it up I’ll be using the methods, techniques and resources that will be discussed on this blog. Let’s see how far it can go in 2008!

So please visit often, make comments, and take advantage of what you find here.

All the Best,
Eric Graudins.

P.S. - 83% of people feel that 2008 will be a better year than 2007.
It’s good to be working with such a positive group of people.

P.P.S. The survey responses to a paid members forum with additional services and benefits were not encouraging. Therefore, I will not be providing it at this stage.
Instead of providing forum members with free access to the products I own and produce, I will be offering a discount at the soon to be opened TasEric shop for people on the TasEric mailing list. Please sign up using the form at the top right of this page.